An Accoustic and Perspective Study of French Vowels as Pronounced by Jordanian Learners and French Speakers

Abstract

The research contains a comparative study of French oral vowels realized by French native speakers and Jordanian Arabic-speaking learners, as well as tests of identification for the nasal vowels produced by the learners and recognized by native listeners of French. The acoustic study of French oral vowels in isolated and consonantal context demonstrates that Jordanian learners experience difficulties in reproducing suitably the vowels /ø - œ/ which do not exist in the phonological system of Arabic and the vowel /u/ which is deformed in the production of the learners despite the fact that it has a phonological counterpart in Arabic. The results also reveal that the learners master only a single sound of the intermediate vowels /e - ɛ / and /o - ɔ/. Perceptual tests of identification indicate that Jordanian learners confuse, in pronunciation, between both nasal vowels /ɑ̃ ɔ̃/. So, it is necessary that acoustic and articulatory phonetics techniques be integrated alongside with strategies to correct the deviant realizations in the learners’ production